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  I walked one evening to the place where Zara used to sit. The sun was setting. The wind carried the scent of lavender from nearby bushes. It was impossibly still. And for a brief moment, I understood—not what happened, but why it mattered. 
When I left Ampang, nothing had changed here. Yet on the other side of the country, the sky was turning gold with winter’s first breath. 
I returned to my apartment. For weeks, I wrote nothing. Then one morning, I sat at my desk and began this story—not for the world, perhaps, but for Zara. So that somewhere, somehow, she might not disappear entirely.
Some people are not meant to stay. They come to remind us—
to look more closely, to listen more deeply, to hold each other more gently.
I never published her story in the paper. But I wrote it here—for myself, and for those who still wonder whether kindness has a place in this world.
Because truth, like grace, begins with remembering.

Then…

…there were Zara’s cassettes.